new shrimp/ cory tank, mistakes, problems and questions

[KittenFishMom]

Background:

About 4 weeks ago, I set up my 10 gallon half cylinder tank to start it cycling. I put organic potting soil in with a black sand cap and a few plants a sponge filter and and air filter. I sprinkled in sinking pellets and some other fish food and added some turbo start 700 several times on different days. I was going to run it as a heated tank for fish. The water is RO water with carefully measured and mixed Seachem Equilibrium.

Last week, I saw shrimp in craigslists and thought it might be fun to use it as a shrimp tank. I took out the heater and added 30 Blue Dream Neocaridina shrimp and ordered shrimp supplies. I ordered Salty Shrimp Mineral GH/KH+, cholla wood, shrimp food and continued to research shrimp. 

Then I read that corys made good tank mates for shrimp, so I put a female and 2 male hifin, long fin peppered corys in the tank. Today I fed the tank bbs and many bbs are still swimming around. I also fed sinking pellets and some fry food(for the shrimp)

The corys and shrimp seem to be happily cruising around the tank. No adults seem to be hiding and no one seems to be fleeing.

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First Problem: The pH is dropping, I think due to the potting soil and IALs and cholla wood. I added some crushed coral and 2 wondershells 3 days ago, so the pH would change slowly and not shock the shrimp. The pH is still around 6.6. I was going to wait until the Salty Shrimp arrived, but am planning to do a water change tonight because of the pH.

Second Problem: This is a tall tank, and I think cory fry need a shallow tank to be able to fill their air bladder easily. 

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First Question: Would it be best to start a tank without potting soil to move the shrimp and corys to so the pH stays higher?

Second Question: What is a good water depth for cory fry that will also work for adult corys and shrimp? 

Third Question: Should I use the Salty Shrimp minerals 100% and not use Equilibrium or dose a percentage of each to equal 100%( ie 50% Salty Shrimp dose, 50% Equilibrium dose) ?

Fourth Question: Food placement, Should I feed the shrimp in a shrimp feeder on the tank wall and the corys on the bottom of the tank?  Also there are 8 or so big pink Ramshorn snails and a bunch random snails. I think they may complicate feeding. Maybe I should feed the snails first and after they get to their feeding spot, then feed the shrimp and corys in their feeding spots on the other side of the tank?

I look forward to your replies!

[nabokovfan87]

On 1/4/2023 at 5:52 PM, KittenFishMom said:

Second Problem: This is a tall tank, and I think cory fry need a shallow tank to be able to fill their air bladder easily. 

Depends more on flow than anything. Too tough for them to get to the top and that causes issues, but having a tall tank is generally fine. I've had fry in 29G, 55G, and 75G without issues.

On 1/4/2023 at 5:52 PM, KittenFishMom said:

Second Question: What is a good water depth for cory fry that will also work for adult corys and shrimp? 

12-18 inches. Both shrimp and Corys want space (front to back, left to right). Imagine a 40B as an ideal for both or something like a 75G.

On 1/4/2023 at 5:52 PM, KittenFishMom said:

First Question: Would it be best to start a tank without potting soil to move the shrimp and corys to so the pH stays higher?

It's an interesting dilemma, not sure I really understand.

Soil, or a lot of high organics in the soil would cause PH issues. I wouldn't bring corydoras too high, so there is a balance there.

[Remi de Groot]

Question 1: Most of your problems seem te be coming from doing to much and trying to be to perfect.
Not sure wat the affects of potting soil are on PH, because i've never used it myself in a tank.
But KH is normally a buffer to prefend big changes in PH and keep it higher as well.
I don't know Seachem Equilibrium but from what i can read on the co-op site it will add GH to the water, no KH.

May i ask why you don't use tap water? Did you test your water?

Question 3: Again, Equilibrium seems to be a GH+. So the same as the Salty Shrimp but without the KH.
If your tap water indeed isn't suitable the GH/KH+ is fine without the Equilibrium.

Question 4: Don't worry to much about the feeding of the shrimps. Most of the food they collect through the whole tank and are micro organism.
The food we add is only extra if they don't find enough or when the tank isn't seasoned enough yet.
Some of my shrimp only tanks i only feed once a week and even that seems to be a bit to much.

In the tanks with fish and shrimps i only feed the fish itself. Shrimps take the left overs from the fish and are fine.
Once in a while i may drop some shrimp food in, but they don't seem to excited about it anyway.

You could add some leaves in the tank to get some extra food in for the shrimps that won't be eaten by the fish.

 

 

 

[KittenFishMom]

Our well has a lot of problems. No calcium, off the charts magnesium, ammonia and bacteria. We can't drink it unless it is through the RO.  We recently put in the RO system, I am just figuring out how to do the tanks correctly.

I start a year and a half ago with my first tank being a 120 gallons of lake water to hold the fish I was catching from the lake. I have only had non-native fish for about a year. I have only had shrimp for 6 days. I am pretty new at this stuff.

[Remi de Groot]

In that case it makes sense to use RO water with GH/KH+.

Putting everything in a new tank wouldn't change the PH problem i guess because of the lack of a KH buffer.
Hopefully the Salty Shrimp will arrive soon. That should end the problem.

[KittenFishMom]

@Remi de Groot I believe "Good judgement comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgement."

My fish would rather I learned from other's bad judgement instead of making all the mistakes myself. 8-)

[nabokovfan87]

On 1/4/2023 at 7:18 PM, KittenFishMom said:

Our well has a lot of problems. No calcium, off the charts magnesium, ammonia and bacteria. We can't drink it unless it is through the RO.  We recently put in the RO system, I am just figuring out how to do the tanks correctly.

Are you able to setup a holding tank to condition water beforehand? Run it through a carbon block and then store 50-150 gallons or something?

I think you have the filter, but maybe not the holding tank?

Edited January 5, 2023 by nabokovfan87

[AllFishNoBrakes]

I have low pH, soft water (pH mid 6 to 7) and have shrimp in most of my tanks and they do just fine. Just like anything else, you should strive for consistency rather than chasing arbitrary numbers. 

[KittenFishMom]

We have set up a temporary 12 gallon covered holding tank where we condition the RO water with Equilibrium, using a heater and an air stone for 24 hours. Ee are still deciding where a bigger long term tank will go. 

What would the carbon block do? We have a 7 cylinder RO/DI system. It has a booster pump to provide the high pressure needed.

I don't think I am chasing numbers. We have to treat the RO water. It is just like distilled water. It has no minerals at all. The RO system takes out the good with the bad. We need to put the good stuff back in for the plants to grow and the animals to have calcium for their bones or shells. 

We tried to make the well water work in the tanks, and it was not possible with no calcium and high ammonia.

[nabokovfan87]

On 1/4/2023 at 9:01 PM, KittenFishMom said:

We have set up a temporary 12 gallon covered holding tank where we condition the RO water with Equilibrium, using a heater and an air stone for 24 hours. Ee are still deciding where a bigger long term tank will go. 

What would the carbon block do? We have a 7 cylinder RO/DI system. It has a booster pump to provide the high pressure needed.

Very likely already there.

My logic and my question being that if you're able to run batches, let's say you have a ton of tanks or something and need 100G of water.  If you were able to run 50-75G of water in a batch, then have a containment for it to be filtered, buffered, aerated, and stabilized, then longer term it would give you a much easier time to review and control parameters.  Something like KH/GH or TDS indicate "things in the water" but not specific about what actually is in the water.  You're in a similar situation to me where the water is just not great.  You might have high values of one thing for 3 months, then it changes, or when it rains you have another swing in parameters.  Specifically membrane filters might help as well as carbon to give you the ability to try to remove peaks from whatever is headed your way from the tap.  You clearly already have that side handled!  But being able to condition water ahead of time, which you're doing, for all of your tanks might help a lot with your parameter swings. 

In my case, I drain out the tank and count the number of buckets I change.  Per bucket I add a certain amount of my buffer.  Then for each tank I slightly overdose prime (heavy metals + Chloramines) and then I dose in iron and my ferts.  It seems like a lot, but the setup I have, I can probably dose all of those items in the time it takes one bucket to fill up from the sink.  Not much, but just a list of things. 

Let's expand and say I needed to add a scoop of shrimp salts, or a scoop of epsom salts for magnesium deficiencies in plants.  It's always going to seem like a lot, but it really, really isn't.  My concern is always that I am adding in water and the fish (and shrimp) will have issues while things mix up.  I do tend to have higher flow and good circulation for this reason!

I'm just thinking for having to buffer a lot of tanks, I wish I had one of those 50G water totes or something...

https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/liquid-storage-tank-65-gal

[Cinnebuns]

On 1/4/2023 at 7:52 PM, KittenFishMom said:

Second Problem: This is a tall tank, and I think cory fry need a shallow tank to be able to fill their air bladder easily. 

Is it a standard sized 10 gallon? If so then that depth is fine. They don't typically go to the top for air until they've grown a bit. All of my cory fry in the past 6 or so months have hatched in a 10 gallon. 

I will caution you tho that cories do eat their own eggs. Some will def hatch but many will also get eaten. 

On 1/4/2023 at 7:52 PM, KittenFishMom said:

Second Question: What is a good water depth for cory fry that will also work for adult corys and shrimp? 

I honestly don't think you need to worry about depth at all. I also have many, almost too many, that hatch in my 29 gallon and that is a very deep tank for its size. 

On 1/4/2023 at 7:52 PM, KittenFishMom said:

Fourth Question: Food placement, Should I feed the shrimp in a shrimp feeder on the tank wall and the corys on the bottom of the tank?  Also there are 8 or so big pink Ramshorn snails and a bunch random snails. I think they may complicate feeding. Maybe I should feed the snails first and after they get to their feeding spot, then feed the shrimp and corys in their feeding spots on the other side of the tank?

This is actually the only issue I've found with cories in with shrimp. You cannot really feed the shrimp on a schedule like people prefer because the fry require 24/7 access to food. I've actually slowed how much I target feed the shrimp when I have a lot of fry because of how much first bites I drop in. 

Another note, ramshorn snails are an issue in this tank for 2 reasons. 1.  They will out compete the shrimp which can be an issue with a new colony and 2.  They will eat eggs all day long. 

[KittenFishMom]

We have the 50 gallon totes and 250 gallon tanks at home. We built a ram pump in the gorge at our house and used water power to pump water up over 100 feet. It was a fun project.

We bought ours off craigslist. I think they had held honey or maple sap. They are food grade and no where near $400.  We had a few 50 gallon ones here at the cottage here one dry summer and used a big sump pump to fill them from the lake. Siphoning out of them made watering the rose and the garden much easier than hauling water up from the lake.

[Cinnebuns]

On 1/4/2023 at 9:08 PM, Remi de Groot said:

Some of my shrimp only tanks i only feed once a week and

Very much this! Some people are able to create shrimp tanks that never need to be fed

[KittenFishMom]

@Cinnebuns I put the ramshorns in when I was cycling the tank because I was ghost feeding the tank and the food wasn't breaking down. I can move the ramshorns snails to a different tank. 

The tank is a 10 gallon half cylinder so it is tall and narrow, compared to a regular 10 gallon tank. I  might just start up a 10 or 15 gallon tank from scratch and leave the snails out. 

After the hundreds up guppies this summer, I would be very happy with less than 10 cory fry, probably less than 5 cory fry would even be better. I am not interested in selling them privately or driving an hour to give them to a fish store. The nearest LFS is now over an hour away. I would do the trade/swap through the forum for local pickup, but I don't think there are any forum members near me. I have decided to rehome my flagfish, but I haven't figure out how.

[Anjum]

@KittenFishMom fwiw I had 2 paleatus corys hatch in my 10g half cylinder & they're doing great. They're now big enough to swim all up & down the water column. I also have ramshorn snails in there & they still managed to hatch & grow. 

 

[KittenFishMom]

@Anjum Wow, that is encouraging !

[Cinnebuns]

On 1/4/2023 at 11:47 PM, KittenFishMom said:

I put the ramshorns in when I was cycling the tank because I was ghost feeding the tank and the food wasn't breaking down. I can move the ramshorns snails to a different tank. 

You may still have ramshorns eggs around so I would be on the lookout for babies for a few weeks. 

[KittenFishMom]

@Cinnebuns I have been pulling every ramshorn I have seen today

@Everyone The hifin corys in my cory shrimp tank just spawned all over the place! There are a lot of eggs, so if some get eaten, I may still have too many. I have been feeding bbs and vibra bits soaked in tank water, so hopefully the corys will fill up on those and leave the eggs for a bit. I'll work on getting photos showing the hopefully soon to be parents.

[nabokovfan87]

Woot woooooot!

[Cinnebuns]

YESSSSSS!!  NICE!!

[KittenFishMom]

@Cinnebuns I found a home for the flagfish !!! yippy!